An ultrasound image processing apparatus and an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus are known which execute a correlation calculation on image data of ultrasound images obtained by transmitting and receiving ultrasound. For example, Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose epoch-making techniques in which a motion of a cardiac muscle is traced over a plurality of frames by pattern matching based on the correlation calculation. In addition, techniques for forming a panorama image by partially overlapping, by pattern matching, a plurality of sets of image data obtained while a probe is moved.
In the pattern matching between image data, for example, a template is set at a location of interest in one of the sets of image data, and a correlation of the image data in the template is calculated while the template is moved in the other set of image data. A position of the template in the other set of image data having the largest similarly is set as a position corresponding to the location of interest.
With this process, for example, a position corresponding to the location of interest is searched (tracked) over a plurality of time phases, to enable observation of the movement of the location of interest. For example, a fixed point which forms a reference point is set, and a distance from the fixed point is calculated, to enable quantitative evaluation of the movement of the location of interest.